Stealing the Remote

Friday, April 8, 2011

Welcome, everyone! I'm about ten years behind picking up the virtual pen. But I tell you what, I've got things to say. Here's why:

My husband and I work at the same small-town state university. We work at the same academic library. We interact with the same geeks. We have the same (okay, I have a little more) amount of education. But here's what happens. On break, I might walk up to my husband with a group of two or three other men, coworkers. In their nerdy, media-loving way, they're talking animatedly about some movie they've all seen. They laugh, they make witty comments, they argue about the best characters, the worst actresses. I see an opening in the conversation, I throw in my zinger with a eyebrow wiggle and a snort.

The conversation stops dead.

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I am presented with courteous smiles and shifting gazes. As quickly as possible, they turn back to each other and resume their conversation. My husband is either oblivious or gives me a comforting smile as if to say, "Good comment, honey, but we're talking here."

Before you say that perhaps I have nothing good to contribute to this conversation and it must be conversational Darwinism that drives those dudes to politely give my input the cold shoulder, I would like to submit another possibility.

Men hold their nerd-convo sacred. Even the most genderly enlightened men will, once huddled in man-temple-clusterfuck, abandon the ones they love for the approval of their peers in all things media.

Alone, the hubs and I spend hours a day discussing books we're reading, music we've stumbled onto, movies we've watched together, etc. He's told me how happy he is to have a wife who appreciates those things and doesn't relegate these joys to the category of "silly man thing that needs to be beaten out methodically." But as soon as that man-group mentality rears its head, this girly is usually out of the picture.

I will take this opportunity to say that we are TINKs. That's Two-Incomes-No-Kids, for those of you who wonder how I even have the time to worry about my media intake. Most women of my age (29, folks!)and geographical or socio-economic situation are bogged down with the constant tasks of child-rearing or housekeeping or maybe, possibly, their career choices. I will say that we stay busy on our small farm and with our nearby family members and friends but since we have no children and since we both genuinely love TV, music, reading, movies, youtubing, and internet browsing we spend a decent chunk of our time participating in those activities. Also, working in a fairly large library, there's a naturally large amount of exposure to all things pop culture.

Here's another scenario. We get home in the evening. We've done our chores. We've had our supper. We head to the living room for the nightly couch flop. Guess who gets the remote or the xbox controller? Almost always, it's my husband. Sound familiar, ladies? Sometimes you don't care. "Just put whatever you want on." But sometimes, there's that moment where you're trying to be cool but you really just want to say:

gawdireallydontwanttowatchonemoreepisodeofmanvsfood.

So, here I am, a lady, living in the bible belt with a few thoughts rolling around in this head. Thoughts that are typically left to the men to talk about, to geek out over, to obsess and chuckle about. Well, we women like to think about these things, too. So, I am STEALING THE REMOTE.